"Waste Not, Want Not"

Tuesday, September 4, 2012
The article that my group was assigned to read was "Waste Not, Want Not" by Bill McKibben. In this article McKibben discusses the idea of waste and not just waste as in trash. He talks about how we waste all kinds like resources, money, time, and human potential. Some statistics that he provides are pretty startling; for example Americans discard enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet every three months. Another one he provides s that we toss fourteen percent of the food that we buy at the store. These were just a few of the examples that the author provides that help to show that our wasteful habits are having a major effect on our planet and on us. The author believes that the only way we can possibly fix the predicament we are in is to return to the idea of "Yankee frugality" where we could not imagine wasting money on ourselves and make do without. Other than that the author really does not provide any other potential ideas on how we can solve the problem caused by our wasteful ways.

Now after reading this article there were a number of questions that could come up that are hinted at but not necessarily commented on in the article. These questions include:
-Are humans wasteful by nature or is it a modern problem?
-What can be done to cut down on waste?
-How can Americans get back into being "famously thrifty"? As the author of the article claimed.
-Where do we start cutting back?
-What will be the catalyst that starts this change?
-What will be the result if we do not change?
-What has and can the government do about this situation?
-What effect does population have on the amount of waste produced?
These are just a few examples of potential questions that one might have after reading this article. In engineering, one of the main goals is to cut down on waste: time, materials, labor just to name a few. Engineers want to stream line their processes as much as possible in order to save, most importantly of all, money. The more you cut down on time, materials, and labor the more money you can make.